


I'm not calling you a ghost, just stop haunting me

by cassanabaratheon



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Angst, Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-15
Updated: 2014-10-15
Packaged: 2018-02-21 06:56:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2458991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cassanabaratheon/pseuds/cassanabaratheon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>But it is then that she noticed the empty ache, the way her tongue moved in her mouth, her lips parting to finish the rest of that name it had begun.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'm not calling you a ghost, just stop haunting me

**Author's Note:**

> Post 5x04

She was so exhausted from her day, from the anger she held for her husband, that the words half-tumbled out before she could catch them all in time. "Thank you O'Bri- _Baxter_!"

She pressed her lips together as if she was afraid that more words, names, would burst from her. Her maid's eyebrows rose in some surprise at being called by another's name and then her face settled into that demure expression it usually occupied and she bobbed her head and left the room.

She let out a breath, her left hand coming up to rest at the base of her throat, her fingers pressed lightly against her pulse that she could feel thumping hard. She swallowed, and then swallowed again, taking in a breath and holding it before releasing it slowly in the hope that her heart would stop its mad race in her chest. It did after another round of this ritual but it is then that she noticed the empty ache, the way her tongue moved in her mouth, her lips parting to finish the rest of that name it had begun.

_O'Brien._

She whispered it to herself, shuddering as it sounded in her ears. No one, not even she herself, had said that name out loud for some time. Her head bowed and she covered her eyes with her right hand, her left clasped more firmly around her throat and she breathed heavily. She had been in such a state of shock when she had found her gone, had ventured into her emptied room for no purpose other than to see it for herself. Perhaps, in her dismay, she had never truly accepted it even though she glanced at references and then hired maid that had been of no use to her and now Baxter who, despite her past, was good to her. But there was a void none could fill and in her struggle of still of accepting that, her mind forgot and her tongue slipped out the name that was still so familiar to it.

She had cried – although she was not crying now – and had woken Robert up with it. He held her in a confused, drowsy state, eager to sleep again. When he questioned her, she had sniffed once and, God help her, lied, choosing for him to believe that she was crying over their deceased daughter and not her maid. It was easier to admit to that than it was to try to express the turmoil that her maid's departure had left.

Slowly, she unfurled from her hunched over position and rubbed her fingers beneath her eyes. It was no use, no matter the lies she had told herself. She felt her, ghosting fingers through her hair, shadowing her step, hovering between those uncertain moments of awake and asleep. Perhaps she was losing her mind as (and she had to laugh at herself) all this was utterly absurd and yet… and yet.

When she went to London, on a whim that had been so strange she might have thought herself possessed, she brought herself a small packet of cigarettes. She found them now, tucked away in a dark corner, and found some matches.

She lit one and let the smell of it fill the air, fill her lungs, and as she breathed out, she let her ghost drift into the curling smoke.


End file.
